Huge Reactor Vessel Nearing Burial Site

A barge carrying the mammoth reactor vessel from the nation’s first commercial nuclear plant completed an 8,000-mile trip Wednesday to Washington state, where it will be buried at the Hanford nuclear complex.

Protesters hurled paint canisters and unfurled banners as the reactor vessel from the dismantled Shippingport, Pa., nuclear plant made its way up the Columbia River in a six-week journey that took it through the Panama Canal.

The barge arrived at a dock on the edge of Richland. The 1,000-ton reactor vessel, which is packed in concrete, will be taken by truck 25 miles to a trench into which it will be placed Friday.